Thursday, November 06, 2008

Heroic Goad

In the article linked, the writer is concerned that the absence of Loeb will sever the "comic book connection", and that the show will spiral (further!) into Petrelli Family Melodrama rather than Superheroic Intrigue and Buttkicking.

I watched the first season of Heroes; I enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun miniseries. One problem, though; it wasn't a miniseries. I was stunned when I heard "Heroes Season Two"; hmm, I thought they were going to quit while they were ahead.

But that's not the Hollywood way (SAW VI!), and so we have had Season 2 and 3. And while it's more or less retained its "comic book touch", I'm afraid it's doing so through many of the worst cliches that characterize comics (and soap operas). Here's just a few:

Not just "separated at birth", not even "identical twins separated at birth", but "superpowered identical triplets separated at birth". I mean, really. It's particularly cruel to give the role to an actress who didn't have the chops to handle her role as a dual personality. "I'm not Nikki!" Um, yeah, sweetie; ya are, because your accent and speech patterns are identical.

Arbitrary (self-imposed!) power restrictions on the overly powerful (Hiro will go back in time just to screw around in his office, but not to save the world?).

"Luke, I am your father / future husband / brother" (honestly, I've not the strength to list all the suddenly uncovered and unlikely relationships, past and future, that the show spits out with the regularity of sourballs from a penny candy machine).

Really obvious thievery from other media. Even Judd Winick couldn't have made "Dr. Suresh as Brundle-Fly" more obvious.

Color coding. Ooh, Claire's a bad guy now so her hair got dark!

Contradictory powers (Hiro's power was hard enough to believe without having a superspeedster to point out that it was nonsensical).

"Legacy" heroes as obvious devices. "We need a painting seer. Uh-oh, we killed that guy. Let's pull another one out of our butts. But we need another trick to make him passive; can't make him a drug addict; let's just make him African instead."

The recent "morality polarity reversals" are painfully strained. Let's make Peter a villain and Sylar a hero! It's easier to believe a Senator can fly... . It's become asuperpowered Degrassi, with characterization changing randomly from episode to episode based on the needs of the plot. "We need Spinner to be a jerk this week, and refuse to share his healing powers with Jimmy."

Then there's the typical Loebian "villain of the month" syndrome. Season 1, Sylar is the be all end all villain. Season 2, he's powerless and there's a new mysterious Big Bad, whose power is the ever-threatening 'not-dying' power, wielded so effectively by Willard Scott and Charles Lane. Ever notice how directors invariably choose some who ages really badly really quickly to play an immortal? Season 3, Sylar's a hero (for no compelling reason other than "Are You My Mommy?" syndrome), and the Immortal Big Bad gets offed casually just to show how much Bigger and Badder the new villain is. In three seasons, Loeb & Co. have managed to push the franchise to same levels of narrative desperation that most comic books tooks 50 to 60 years to reach.

I'm not sure that Loeb's leaving will redeem Heroes; I'm thinking it's too late for that. But perhaps the comic book cliches will be less obvious now.

Scipio's ananlysis is, as always, right on. I thought the big season premiere was overkill. I think the show has already jumped the shark but it has such a following that it will probably take a while to die. It's hard to imagine what they can do to give the show a purpose.

I agree. The show has (well... had) so much potential! The first season was genuinely good, except a sub-par season finale. That should have been a sign. Now they have no idea what they're doing and the show is hemoragghing viewers. It's got at least one more season left in it I would think.

(And it's Sylar not Skylar. And despite the nonsensical twist where he's a Petrelli and now a good guy, he's still my favorite part of the show.)

I am enjoying season three just as much as I did season one. And I LOVED season one. I think with any show or movie or book...you are going to have those people who hate it and those who are middle ground and want it better and those who think it's the best thing on earth.

My firends and I love the show...and one of them is even a comic book store manager. He calls me every Monday night after the shows to just go over the whole show and what he loved...etc.

I've seen the man shot, stabbed, beheaded, set on fire, thrown from an airplane, and all for nothing. I myself ran him over with a minivan in 1998. Yet there he is every damn morning, telling us that Linda Sue O'Malley of Penobscot, Maine, just turned 109 and loves making macrame cats.

The man is insane and unholy. Perhaps he drinks the blood of the elderly women he champions, or he is some sort of future human, sent back in time to warn us of the futility of hairpieces?

He must be stopped. Short of nuclear weapons, however, I can't see how.

Well depends on you what you consider self contained...as Heroes does end leaving you wondering what happens to two characters and then picks up with 5 mins of the next season. I know watching the first season the first time around I it was enough of a cliffhanger for me to be eager about the next season.

Agreed on David Boreanaz aging badly. The Angel of 2004 looked 10 years older than the Angel of 1997.

As for Heroes, I had actually been thinking about how Jeph Loeb-y it had gotten this season. So much of the plotting seems to be "Wouldn't it be cool if THIS thing happened?" regardless of whether or not that makes any sense.

Sylar has a kid! Who cares who the mother is?

Future Peter can do EVERYTHING! No need to explain his powers!

OMG! Claire and Veronica Mars are totally holding hands! HOTT!

As you say, the show might be beyond saving, but I think de-Loeb-ification can only be a good thing.

You nailed it again. Those cliches are getting painful to watch. The article said that the remaining producer, Kring, was unfamiliar with the X-Men. Sounds good to me, now they can stop recycling the same decades old X-Men plots and characters twice a season. I for one won't miss the Loeb-formula magic, as seen in Long Halloween/Hush and most recently in Hulk and Ultimatum.

On a WAY TOO RELATED note, have you read the first issue of ULTIMATUM? I'm a DC guy, but I admit that I really liked the Ultimates (1 & 2) and Ultimate Spider-Man, so I was interested in Ultimatum. I picked it up, read it...wow. End of the world. People unable to think of logical uses of their powers. The MADDENING pattern of everyone having two minute conversations explaining their backgrounds and current angst. Character out of, well, character. I looked at the cover: LOEB. He invaded Ultimatum with his terrible Heroes formula!

I didn't watch Heroes until after season 2 was over. I watched season 1 and hoped that Sylar and Peter and Claire would all go away. So of course who turns out to be the stars of seasons 2 and 3? Why Sylar, Peter, and Claire, of course...

It is also frustrating that while they keep introducing new members of the Petrelli family they also keep ignoring other members like Nathan's wife and kids.

The real good news is not only that Loeb is gone but Mark Verheiden is on the Heroes team and has been working on this season's second story arc. That's a one-two punch that has me optimistic for the future of Heroes.

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. The Long Halloween and Dark Victory are filled with blatantly obvious callbacks to the first two Godfather movies, Goodfellas, and the Untouchables, among other gangster films. As a movie buff, Loeb's constant use of references to other media comes off as either a pathetic attempt to appear "important" or a pathetic attempt to be cute.

Truth be told (well, *my* truth, in any event), David Boreanaz didn't age badly, he just...aged. Aged well, in my opinion, but when you're supposed to be playing an ageless immortal...then, yes, you've got a point.

Perhaps Willard Scott actually feeds on the lifeforces of such celebrities as Lambert and Boreanaz?

I explained the biggest problem with Season 3 on my blog: the Idiot Plot. As defined by Roger Ebert, it's the type of plot that can only advance if all the main characters are complete idiots. Season 3 was rife with them.